Kimberley city council received a positive update on the new wastewater treatment plant project.
The project is making strong progress, with construction slightly ahead of schedule. Detailed design work has been completed, critical equipment and materials have been secured, and roughly 44 per cent of the concrete work is finished.
Nik Morissette, senior manager of operations, told councillors the project is progressing well and outlined the next steps.
“As we all know construction started earlier this year. We had the official groundbreaking ceremony in April and then work ramped up quite quickly with civil works, excavations, underground utilities, and then moving into the concrete structure. The concrete structure has been the main focus for the last few months and is moving along nicely, actually slightly ahead of schedule,” said Morissette.
“We’ve got most of the foundations in place and we’re working on the foundation walls and tank walls and then after that we’re going to be starting to hydrostatically test the tanks once the concrete is complete on those.”
Morissette also provided an update on the Municipal Waste Regulation (MWR) registration.
“On the permitting front or the municipal waste regulation, we received our registration in February 2026. There were some conditions tied to that with completing several monitoring plans and we’ve been working with the Ministry of Environment, in completing those plans,” he said.
“We’ve submitted our first draft a couple months ago and are working through comments and revisions on those to be resubmitted by the end of this month for their final review, and hopefully that will bring us towards the last steps in finalizing the MWR registration.”
The project is also expected to come in nearly $1 million under its original approved budget.
“As we worked through finalizing the last two scopes of work on the project we were able to get to a point where we have the confidence to secure what is called the final target cost,” said Morissette.
“We are now at the point where we set that final target cost, and with that brought some significant savings. We were then able to reinvest back into the project itself.”
Those savings have allowed the project team to add back features that were previously removed to bring the project within budget.
“So some items were removed off the table as we worked to bring the budget back in line during the validation process, and we’re now able to bring some of those items back in place. Then there’s other items that increase the functionality and the overall durability and usability of the plant for the long-term that we’re happy to bring back into the project,” Morissette said.
“So with the setting of the final target cost, bringing reinvestment of these added value incentive items, we’re looking at an overall net savings of just under about $1 million currently projected on the plant as it stands right now.”
Mayor Don McCormick said he was delighted with the news and impressed with the team behind the project.
“For us to be navigating through this process the way we are is absolutely amazing. It proves it can be done. It’s awesome. Great work,” said McCormick.
More updates will be provided to council and the public as construction continues.
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